Sunday, July 16, 2006

Holy Goat Mature Veloute

There's a lot of good things said about our produce so I thought I might explore some of the items we should justifiably be proud of.

Cheese is a slightly contentious product, centred upon the debate about raw milk cheese - here in Australia we aren't allowed to produce cheese from raw milk and up until recently there has been bans on the importation of raw milk cheese (exceptions to this were the hard-cooked curd cheese like Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano). The laws have been relaxed a little and we can now get some raw milk cheese, it's still a risky venture for the importers. Lovers of Roquefort know the pain.

With the limitations of the production of certain cheese, we still produce some fine dairy products. For my first cheese, I'll be showing an organic goat's cheese produced here in my home state of Victoria.

Hand made in the French-style from an Organic Certified (Level A) Goat herd. Slow lactic acid fermentation combines with hand ladling into individual forms where the cheese is allowed to drain purely under the effect of gravity.

Veloute is described as a "barrel shaped cheese with a white mould surface and delicate flavour at 3 weeks which becomes more complex and nutty as it matures between 3-10 weeks"

I particularly enjoy the mushroom aroma and taste from the white mould rind (very similiar to camembert), there's a bit of that goat cheese tang at the back of the palette but it's wrapped in the creaminess of the cheese.

8 comments:

Ooh, I can't say I've ever had goat's cheese but I've heard of it's many delights...

I've been told of a goat's cheese manufactured in Victoria which is apparantly rolled in vine leaf ash but despite my searching I haven't been able to locate it. You wouldn't have come across it, would you?

Hi Ellie - There's two that I can think of - Woodside Edith which is a goat cheese rolled in vine leaf ash but that's a south australian cheese and the Meredith Ashed Pyramid which is Victorian. I have also recently had one that was wrapped in the vine leaf but I can't recall it's name at the moment.A good place to find this type of cheese is the prahran market, which is where I love to shop. I'll have a look and see if I can find any others.

Goat cheese is one of those things that can take a bit of time to love or more a case of finding a style that appeals to you. I probably wouldn't start with an ashed version, I'd go for something like fresh goat curd or some of the younger goat cheeses from Udder Delights like Brancolette.

Haalo, what a great post. I love goats cheese so much. On our recent trip to BC we went to 3 fromageries and bought cheeses we haven't tried before. We haven't eaten any of them yet though. I love the label on the Holy Goat, as well as the name.

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